Wuuttup. I’m here complaining again about Framework’s Linux unfriendly display. The new one this time.
https://frame.work/products/display-kit?v=FRANJF0001
Old display, 2256 x 1504 (3:2)
GNOME
100% scale
- Nothing looks blurry
- Everything is tiny
- Unusable
100% scale + large text accessibility
- Nothing looks blurry
- Most apps scale appropriately
- Some apps don’t respect GNOME’s large text setting (Alacritty)
125% scale
- Most apps look blurry (Picard, Firefox, Spotify, Alacritty)
200% scale
- Everything is way too big
- Unusable
Plasma
100% scale
- Nothing looks blurry
- Everything is tiny
- Unusable
125% scale + Apply scaling themselves
- Nothing looks blurry
- Most apps scale appropriate
- Some apps can’t scale themselves and look tiny (Picard)
125% scale + Scaled by system
- Most apps look blurry (Picard, Firefox, Spotify, Alacritty)
200% scale
- Everything is way too big
- Unusable
New display, 2880 x 1920 (3:2)
GNOME
100% scale
- Nothing looks blurry
- Everything is tiny
- Unusable
100% scale + large text accessibility
- Nothing looks blurry
- Most apps scale appropriately
- Some apps don’t respect GNOME’s large text setting (Alacritty)
- Everything is tiny
150% scale
- Most apps look blurry (Picard, Firefox, Spotify, Alacritty)
200% scale
- Everything is way too big
- Unusable
Plasma
100% scale
- Nothing looks blurry
- Everything is tiny
- Unusable
150% scale + Apply scaling themselves
- Nothing looks blurry
- Some apps can’t scale themselves, but look a little better here? (Picard)
150% scale + Scaled by system
- Most apps look blurry (Picard, Firefox, Spotify, Alacritty)
200% scale
- Everything is way too big
- Unusable
tl;dr
In the old display, GNOME at 100% + large text was the best compromise. In the new display, Plasma at 150% + Apply scaling themselves is the best compromise.
Interestingly, Picard scaling itself looks super tiny in the old display, but in the new display it looks… better. It’s still not correctly scaled like native Wayland apps, but it’s better.
Warning
If you can’t stomach moving from GNOME to Plasma, then 🚨 DO NOT BUY THE NEW DISPLAY 🚨. The new display is worse for GNOME.
Once again
I am once again begging Framework to just give us a damn regular DPI display that works! Without workarounds. Without forcing users on specific DEs. Without forcing users to stop using their favorite apps. This new display has basically all of the flaws as the previous one.
Would you be happier with 640x480?
Seriously, cannot go back. When MacBooks came out with retina, got one and got a program to run at native resolution. So much data and text on a screen! Looking forward to this display with 100% scale. Full stop. Everyone always says my text looks tiny but I love it! Dual 4k monitors, no scaling on my desktop Linux. My old Alienware laptop was 4k oled, gnome and KDE looked fan frickin tastic! I’m not buying pixels to not have em go to full use.
Hell yeah. Wonder if you have like 20/10 vision or something that helps you with the size. I love love the look of native 4K but it strains my eyes and brain to read 😥
Thanks for the write up. I was in a similar situation with a 4k 14 inch Dell something, instead of scaling at 200%, I lowered the resolution to half at 1080p and it worked flawlessly. Maybe you could try it too?
The issue here is that some apps don’t support scaling, so they show in a lower resolution, making them look blurry.
Your solution just makes everything do that.
Isn’t scaling to 200% the same as lowering the resolution to half? And you lose the high DPI for apps that support it too.
No, resolution is on layer display server (X11, tools like xrandr), while scaling is, like compositing, on layer window manager (xfwm, kwin, etc).
And you lose the high DPI for apps that support it too.
Is the dispkay 4k on notebook-size? 2k would’ve been enough, you don’t lose pixels if you couldn’t have seen them anyway, which is why everything was too small.
It’s called angular resolution.
Edit: my bad, visual acuity was the word i looked for.
Btw, https://tftcentral.co.uk/articles/the-obsession-with-4k-and-do-you-need-it-on-a-new-monitor
Yeah I get the display server part. What I meant was that 200% scaling gets you 1920x1080 logical resolution on HiDPI applications – LoDPI applications continue to be blurry just as if you set your actual resolution to 1080p, but HiDPI applications will enjoy the enhanced visual acuity.
Even on smaller screens like the 14" ones, the quality of very high resolution (e.g. 4K) is still quite visible IMO, especially when it comes to text rendering. But it could very well just be my eyes.
Try changing display resolution instead of scaling. Scaling was always a hack.
No, the problem is, built-in displays have too high resolution for their usecase (because vendors can demand more cash for it). Things don’t get less sharp if you scale that (via resolution) to comfortale size, your angular resolution doesn’t get better just with that. You don’t lose pixels you can’t see.
The hack is the solution that sometimes works and sometimes not, which is the case with software scaling.
And your “future” is at least five years ago.
edit: “too low set resolution”, what are you talking about? It’s too high originally, heating your notebook and lowering battery live for nothing.
🤣🤣WTF are you talking
Setting scale down makes everything looks shit! Are you blind?! The pixels are fucking gigantic if you do this. I go through up if I have to use lowDPI screens, evry usecase demands at least 2k or better 3kfor me (at 14”). Speaking desktop 32” 4k it is.
GNOME sucks, both in their community engagement culture, and actual look. I’ve never liked their culture, but they used to have a superior desktop IMO.
96 DPI should be a choice, agreed. But it’s a software issue when an app or a framework doesn’t display well on HIDPI.
Agreed! Not saying it’s not a software issue. Of course the software is broken. Of course I wish it was updated.
But, Framework seeing the landscape and picking hardware with known issues is a bad choice. They could offer lower DPI and eliminate entire pages of workarounds and half fixes.
Yes, high DPI should work, but it doesn’t everywhere. That’s just the reality, I wish it wasn’t.
